Sony and Apple once had words of praise for each other, but today the two companies are engaged in a war of words through the Wall Street Journal. At issue is Sony's claim that the new 20 GB Walkman NW-HD1 can hold up to 13,000 songs, substantially more than the 5,000 songs that Apple claims its 20 GB iPod can hold. The difference, of course, is the compression rates used to determine capacity, and Apple has accused Sony of making an apples to oranges comparison. From the Journal:
In a statement, Apple said Sony isn't accurately depicting the song capacity of its new 20-gigabyte Network Walkman. While Sony says the device can hold 13,000 tracks, Apple alleges that the Japanese electronics giant, in calculating the storage capacity of the Network Walkman, is using songs that are compressed into digital files of inferior fidelity to those that Apple uses to calculate how many songs the iPod can hold (digital music of lower quality take up less storage but delivers poorer sound than high-quality songs). As a result, Apple posits, Sony's Walkman actually holds only 4,800 songs that have been compressed into a higher quality format.
"We're disappointed that Sony, which is new to this market, has decided to make their first impression by attempting to mislead the press and customers," Apple said in a statement.
[...]
"Sony chose to play marketing games so we wanted to set things right so that people could compare the devices apples to apples," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of hardware product marketing.
There is much more in the full article, including what the Journal characterizes as an "angry" retort from Sony, and we recommend it as a very interesting read.
The Mac Observer Spin:
This reminds us a bit of the public war of words between Apple and former IDG head honcho Charlie Greco over moving Macworld Expo back to Boston. Of course, that battle resulted in Apple eschewing the Boston show, and hanging out at DV Expo instead, but that's neither here nor there.
This cat fight is different, however, as it's over a market segment that is currently responsible for a big chunk of Apple's operating profits. It's good that Apple has attempted to raise awareness of how and why Sony's 13,000 song claim is misleading -- most consumers are not likely to understand the math behind capacity, and won't look past the marketing claims -- and really, anything either company does to raise awareness for their mutual products can only increase sales.
That said, the fact that Apple has taken this step suggests the company is either worried about Sony, or at least recognizes Sony as a threat. That, in our never humble opinion, is wise, and perhaps even uncharacteristic of Apple.
All the URL links in the article point to an older article in the SF Gate from where Sony first introduced their new Walkman, there's no links to anything newer in the Journal or the Gate about the current war of words.
Apple, RDF, masters of hype, and on occasion, fraud! This actually is a great story, and funny too!
Apple, you should be able to take some of your own medicene! In the meantime start selling more Macs. 1.0% does not look good on SJobs resume'.........
Guest wrote: All the URL links in the article point to an older article in the SF Gate from where Sony first introduced their new Walkman, there's no links to anything newer in the Journal or the Gate about the current war of words.
Just wait till SJobs puts Saddam Hussein on the Apple BOD. Saddam will kick sand in their faces, clogging their Walkmans with sand also! Saddam may be a jerk, but by golly don't even mess with his iPod. Ever since he was lured out of his hiding place with an iPod Saddam and his iPod have been inseparable. He even said you can take my country, but don’t take my iPod!!
CloseViewName:Guest Wed Jul 07, 2004 6:54 pmSubject: Peter
Actually, according to Sony, music encoded in 48kbps ATRAC+ sounds as good or a little better than 128kbps MP3. I can't find the link to the Sony-sponsored study which shows this.
Apple may well be playing on the public's ignorance of such things ("Hey, 128 is a bigger number than 48, so it must be better"). From the company that introduced us all to the "megahertz myth", it's kind of sad. Sony has the numbers--potentially dubious as they may be--to back up their claims.
Guest wrote: Actually, according to Sony, music encoded in 48kbps ATRAC+ sounds as good or a little better than 128kbps MP3. I can't find the link to the Sony-sponsored study which shows this.
Apple may well be playing on the public's ignorance of such things ("Hey, 128 is a bigger number than 48, so it must be better"). From the company that introduced us all to the "megahertz myth", it's kind of sad. Sony has the numbers--potentially dubious as they may be--to back up their claims.
That's simply not true. I don't doubt that Sony paid for a study that made this claimj, but every independent test I've ever seen ranks ATRAC at the very bottom (with OGG Vorbis and AAC at the top, BTW).
I'll look for links, but I'm sure you guys can Google just as well as I can.
The original iPod instruction manual said "the rechargeable battery is not replaceable and is designed to last for the life of the product". Talk about outright lying to consumers.
Once the iPod batteries started dying, bad internet publicity and lawsuits forced Apple to create a grossly overpriced $99 iPod battery replacement program. Apple knows once they have a victim they can always squeeze out a few more dollars.
RealityCheck wrote: The original iPod instruction manual said "the rechargeable battery is not replaceable and is designed to last for the life of the product". Talk about outright lying to consumers.
And this is totally irrelevant to the topic of this thread, which is about the competing proprietary codec compression of Sony vs. AAC and - actually - MP3 (since Sony's device isn't truly MP3 compatible).
You're really having trouble trolling today. Feeling alright?
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Apple is renowned for its Reality Distortion Field, like world's fastest PC, world's first 64 bit computer, 3GHz in a year, OS X will speed up your Mac.
For standard usage the Sony player does hold more songs, this is not fudging. Compared to Apple, Sony's claims look like a brilliant ray of truth.
At least Apples' claim is based on the bitrate of the songs in their music store. So they can justifiably claim 5000. Sony Connects service will sell 132bit ATRAC3 tracks (considered inferior to 128 bit AAC), and so unlikely to hold 5000 let alone their claimed 13000 tracks.
If Apple wished they could easily measure their capacity in terms of 48 bit tracks as well.
It's getting boring having Thurrott and Enderle posting under the pseudonym of Reality Check - surely they have Windows updates to run? And all this alluding to people being up Steve Jobs' arse - Reality Check it's a wonder you see the sun at all ... How are Bill's haemorrhoids today?
Re: RealityCheck "like world's fastest PC, world's first 64 bit computer, 3GHz in a year, OS X will speed up your Mac."
"World's Fastest PC" - well that's always going to be debatable advertising speak - try to understand that people say stuff to sell things ... perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't ... Anyone who buys a PC because it is the "World's Fastest" needs to take a good long look at themselves ... the fact that it affected you so badly, I don't know - try therapy ...
Your memory appears to be rather selective ... Apple claimed the first 64 bit personal computer which the G5 was - ie. it's not a workstation, but a computer designed for personal use ...
re. 3GHz in a year, I don't see that being a load of RDF FUD, but rather an optimistic projection based on the information available at the time - saying "3GHz in a year and your Mac will make you coffee and do your washing" would perhaps be stretching it ...
I don't know about your computing experience with OSX, but I've found each successive iteration of this operating system to be significantly faster on my G4.
It appears with the adoption of terms like RDF, you have bought into the myth of mindless drones being told what to do by a charismatic figure that they believe unswervingly ... I don't know about you, but I bought my computer to do a task and it does. Most people do the same thing ... Everyone has freedom of choice to choose what suits them best - it's a good thing.
Perhaps you should look at the zealot in yourself a little more closely.
o world's fastest PC --> Clearly established in the bias-free zone of supercomputer performance with Virginia Tech's X.
o world's first 64 bit computer-->Apple said the G5 was the world's first 64-bit desktop computer; that was correct
o 3GHz in a year-->A lie? Perhaps, but more likely an optimistic prediction.
o OS X will speed up your Mac--> That is absolutely true especially considering Mac OS X's multi-tasking capabilities. It is also true that each iteration of OS X has been faster than the last.
Actually, there's something which Sony calls ATRACplus, to further muddy the waters, which is supposed to sound better than MP3 & WMA. I found the link--hooray for Safari's history!
I'm not enough of a statistician to know how they fudged the results, perhaps someone can look at it and spot the smoking gun.
By the way, though, I'd point out your links to an "independent" test was done by an open-source advocate so I could argue that it isn't surprising that Ogg won many of the tests. Also, he doesn't mention what decoder he used, which can make a big difference. I would assume Sony has a better decoder than he does.
I'm not saying that there may not be some shenanigans going on with Sony. But I do dislike the knee-jerk reaction that there's absolutely no way that a 48Kbps ATRAC (plus?) encoded file could sound as good as a 128Kbps AAC file. Sony's been doing digital audio for quite some time and it's certainly possible that they have some sort of patented breakthrough encoding.
Anonymous wrote: All the URL links in the article point to an older article in the SF Gate from where Sony first introduced their new Walkman, there's no links to anything newer in the Journal or the Gate about the current war of words.
All of the links have been corrected. Thanks for the note!
Guest wrote: I do dislike the knee-jerk reaction that there's absolutely no way that a 48Kbps ATRAC (plus?) encoded file could sound as good as a 128Kbps AAC file. Sony's been doing digital audio for quite some time and it's certainly possible that they have some sort of patented breakthrough encoding.
If you believe this...even that there's a chance a 48Kbps file sounds better than a 128Kbps file, I'd liek to speak to you about some real estate opportunities.
Guest wrote: Actually, according to Sony, music encoded in 48kbps ATRAC+ sounds as good or a little better than 128kbps MP3. I can't find the link to the Sony-sponsored study which shows this.
Apple may well be playing on the public's ignorance of such things ("Hey, 128 is a bigger number than 48, so it must be better"). From the company that introduced us all to the "megahertz myth", it's kind of sad. Sony has the numbers--potentially dubious as they may be--to back up their claims.
Yes, "megahertz-myth" umm.. lemme see.. a 2.6 Ghz Celeron equals a 2.6 Ghz P4? Yes.. I see your point.. *chuckles*
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